Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...

[Lyle Bickley]

On Wednesday 04 May 2005 12:43, Joe R. wrote:
--snip--
>    It's not just high density. The newest maxtors DO suck! So do the latest
> Seagates. For the ones of you that didn't know it, Glen Goodwin operates a
> computer repair shop and has had LOTS of experience with this. I talked to
> him about this and he recommended buying an IBM drive made by Fujitsu. I
> bought one and have had NO trouble with it (knock on wood!). All of the
> Seagates and Maxtors that I've tried in the last few years have failed
> within six months.

One of my large manufacturing clients here in Silicon Valley uses 100,000s of 
drives from various manufacturers.  I've looked at their "return" numbers - 
and not surprisingly, ALL manufacturers have bad lots - even on server class 
drives.

One trend I have noticed - whenever there is a significant "upgrade" - 7200RPM 
to 10K RPM or 10K RPM to 15K RPM - or in density - the return rate shoots up.

Since most folks don't have access to this specific kind of data (it's highly 
confidential) - there are a few rules that I follow that have generally kept 
me out of trouble with drives: 

1) Don't buy the "latest, supposedly greatest" drives.

2) When buying drive lots - go for the "former" best seller.  For example when 
72GB drives became the new "standard" in IBM/HP/Sun server systems - there 
was tons of 36GB drives that showed up almost immediately on the surplus 
market.  Buy them and you'll likely be safe.

3) Buy server class drives as opposed to consumer class drives (They have 
better bearings, castings, etc.)  You can't tell from how a drive looks on 
the outside - look at the specs and the MTBF numbers before you buy.

4) Most SCA and FC drives are very reliable because they are almost always 
server class drives.

Cheers,
Lyle
-- 
Lyle Bickley
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com
"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"